Helpful Information

Published September 7, 2025 by helentastic67

Helpful Information

Also, after moving into the building, I discovered weird things like my car-space is not accessible from the garage entrance on my side of the building?! Something else the real estate guy failed to mention!

Seems the two apartment towers each on a different street and joined in the middle by a large communal garden and BBQ area has a carpark that was built in such a way I often describe it like a deck of cards being shuffled by a high roller croupier.

Researching this tutorial has made me miss card games. Now I have other things to be annoyed about.

I attempted solitaire with actual cards in the early times of being one-handed. Soul destroying. Don’t do it!

Being One-Handed

Published January 9, 2023 by helentastic67

Being One Handed

I must confess, I sometimes really love it when people take a moment to realise, I’m ONE-HANDED. Over Christmas I was at a small family gathering, which is to say, they have not spent much time around me since my disability/or disabilities.

We were doing a BBQ dinner and cutlery was scares. I confess, the knife is lost on me these days, I asked my cousin to my left to hold the skewer while I used my fork to pull the meat off the skewer. I tried, after a moment, she offered to do both. On my left, my younger sister reached over with her knife and fork to cut up a snag on my plate.

SNAG! Not just a Sensitive New Age GUY! But another name for a sausage.

A great Aussie line is “a BBQ isn’t a BBQ without a sausage!” and when my cousin came back sit down, cutlery was in very short supply. I offered my knife, still clean and untouched. I had to insist, holding my fork in my right hand and suggesting she had a few seconds to work out as to why I didn’t need the knife.

I explained who had helped me and how. When they got it, they got it pretty quickly and I gave them a smile as if to express, ‘It is what it is’. What can I do? Which made it ok that they hadn’t realised these are the simple things.

It has been strange spending time with family who in the last fifteen years haven’t been around me to know all the day to day things about my disabilities.

I know, despite the multi-layered name of my blog I haven’t covered it much. Mostly because, I’m one-handed and thankfully naturally right-handed, so I’ve just gotten on with stuff.

Often, even immediate family I need to remind them of things I just don’t do and this makes me pretty fucking grumpy.

Who thought I’d wrap this blog post up without uttering a swear word?
Not I!

Inconsistency

Published November 9, 2022 by helentastic67

Inconsistency

Wow, anyone noticed lately I’ve been a little less than consistent? Yeah, I really don’t like being inconsistent. I’m actually always found ways to have routine, even when I did not have study or a full-time job, I built things and life into a routine. Maybe building this and consistency made it easy to keep my AVM be unnoticed for so long. Maybe it’s how I coped. Or the signs of it, I don’t know, it’s a working theory.

So, if you have been following, you know there has been chaos, emotional trauma and grief and my normal routine has been thrown out of whack.

Two brief visits to the country have meant returning home I’ve needed a week just to catch back up on the normal. People assume having carers is set and forget but it requires ongoing maintenance. Having events out of the norm means shuffling, more intensive organising stuff, Admin, housekeeping. It all starts to back up on me. Mail, letters that require action grows, phone calls, emails, new groups plus Zooming.

In times of stress, I’ve always needed more sleep and every now and again I get a migraine where I just can’t function and I’m in bed by 3.30pm and I’m hungover for days despite deadlines and events.

On Thursday last week I went to the AGM of the NGO I’ve volunteered with for over ten years. I’ve been a voting member for 4-6 of those. You member the group that was under valuing me and bullying me. Yeah, that one! I stepped down. Even by choice, with all the other grief and stuff in life to deal with, it was a tear in the corner of my eye moment. I was asked to stand so a room full of mostly strangers could see who I was and asked if I wanted to say something. I did but wasn’t in any state to speak. Nor, would they have wanted to hear what I would have said.

Add to this my carer wore perfume that day. She made the statement “it was her thing!” I’m like, “Get another thing!” And then the migraine to boot.

On the Sunday, I did a BBQ gathering in a local park to celebrate my recent 5-Oh! And upon arrival found the BBQs did not work.

Having some WTF Moments of late, and not coping. Things continue to slip. It’s now practically Wednesday and Tuesday came with two carers arriving because I forgot to cancel one and it allowed me to do some outsourcing and some catching up. My small stack of hospital referrals and letters for appointments has gone. And while this is not the post I’d intended; I will start on the next. A BIG AWARD TO BE REVEALED! Some updates on all the important things and finding new ways to write since I’ve got bigger issues with my one good hand.

TO BE CONTINUED………

Today’s Lunch – 24th January 2018

Published January 24, 2018 by helentastic67

Todays lunch 2401

Today’s Lunch 24/01/18

Wednesday’s Good Mental Health Day…

Today’s lunch is a little different today. I’m actually at a once yearly United Brains BBQ. It’s one of the Melbourne based brain injury groups I am on the fringes of. So, instead of food today, here are some pictures of people!

Ok, and maybe some food.

Sausage Sizzle Steak Sanga

Always feel being at these kinds of ABI groups they could easily recruit the next season of Walkers for the Walking Dead here. There is always some numpty walking around drooling. I generally pick my regular faces to catch up with quietly. Even though I have one ear trained on what others are discussing. I then try to offer a few brief words of advice to help others. I generally don’t last long before I have a migraine and am feeling very seedy. I do still have my standard punchy/stabby day ahead.

Also, note photo of moi with a marrow? Ok, Larissa the artist gave it to me and. No matter how big they get she still calls it a zucchini. I grew up calling it a marrow once they got this big.

Zuchinni

#Helensnotexpecting

Also, the photo of the snag in bread? Most Aussie thing ever! Yes, it’s the long sausage in the square bread!

I really wanted to include a clip of a comedian explaining his take on some of our Aussie food things. His name is Ivan Artisteguieta and yes, I have written that name enough times today. He comes from Venezuela so his take on our food culture is rather amusing to us. He does a particularly witty take on our love of the sausage sizzle at our Bunnings hardware stores. Because they are there to raise money as a fundraising activity. That smell of burning onion as you leave a Bunnings on a Saturday morning gets you every time! However, he makes fun of us trying to put a long sausage into a square piece of bread or as we often refer to it as a Snag in bread. He points out in America and Venezuela where he is from they have long sausages and buns designed for such. So, I guess if you all luck out on finding anything on him online, as I did. Keep an eye out for him on the comedy circuit.

Australia Day/Invasion Day is this weekend so a good Aussie staple is in much need. That is the anniversary of when the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay in 1788, and when the Aboriginal community see as the start of white man killing and abusing their people. It happened, I’m not suggesting it didn’t. I know I didn’t do it and I’m sure you don’t need me to get politically motivated about it here. If you would like to read more about the above here is a link…

https://www.australiaday.org.au/about-australia-day/history

My brain hurts however have a great day!

Brain hurts 1